Still another,
Elida

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

From:   INTERNET:[email protected],
INTERNET:[email protected]
TO:     PADUTCHgenONLY-L, INTERNET:[email protected]
DATE:   5/16/99 12:49 PM

RE:     Re: Re:Patronymics

In a message dated 5/16/99 12:20:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
[email protected] writes:

 One obvious way to distinguish between, for example, two "John's"
>  in the same village, would be to indicate whose son they are.  In other
>  words, John, son of William, or John, son of Robert, or more simply,
>  William's son, or John, Robert's son.  These have come down to us as
>  Williamson, Robertson, and all the other "-son's" and "-sen's" in
>  several European languages, not just English.

Diana- to add another facet to your excellent explanation would be to add
the 
fact that this is also the way non-patronymic surnames started out.  In
many 
cases instead of John, son of Robert; and John, son of William, we had John

who lives on the hill--or John Hill; or John who worked as a clerk--John 
Clark, and so on.  The original surnames, including patronymics MEANT 
something.  

For our Germanic surnames we need to know what the names mean in
German--for 
instance: Zimmerman=Carpenter; Jäger=Hunter, etc.

Joan


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